Lando Norris is in every position to take his first Formula One win this season if the team can deliver what they expect to be a competitive car, according to McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella. However both Stella and McLaren’s chief executive, Zak Brown, cautioned that Red Bull may once more dominate from the off.
Stella was speaking before the team unveiled the new livery of their 2024 car, the MCL38, at the team’s headquarters in Woking. He was confident in their latest model and the British driver Norris’s potential to finally secure his debut F1 win in the 24-year-old’s sixth season in the sport.
Last year McLaren opened well off the pace but upgrades delivered in Austria catapulted them into competing regularly for podiums, with Norris capitalising.
Stella said: “If we take a look at the numbers from Austria on, Lando is the second highest scorer behind Max [Verstappen]. This reflects the quality of the driving, the delivery he is capable of, which puts him at the top of the grid.
“The first victory is always the most important, then things come slightly easier. The main reason this has not been possible is because we have not put Lando in the position to consistently compete for a victory. He is ready for that, it’s more about us being ready in delivering the car that allows him to take the opportunities.”
Last season, after Austria, Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri scored nine podiums, including six second places for Norris which secured the team fourth in the constructors’ championship. Their car consistently improved and Stella was bullish in his belief more was to come this year. He emphasised that they did not expect to see diminishing returns from the steps forward made last season.
The team have been able to fully exploit the new wind tunnel and simulator facilities which came online on 2023 in the development of the new car, and are now able to take advantage of the arrival of Rob Marshall as technical director, engineering, who was headhunted from Red Bull, and David Sanchez as technical director of car concept and performance from Ferrari.
All of which Stella suggested would lead to them being able to improve the upward gradient of improvement they enjoyed in the latter half of 2023. “When we look at the car, the suspension, tyres, aerodynamics, they all have a lot to offer in this generation of regulation so we are looking to cash-in these performance opportunities.” he said.
Nonetheless there is already a strong expectation that Red Bull, who won 21 of the 22 races last season, will once more prove a formidable force. Such was their advantage last year that they ceased developing upgrades for the car as early as August, shifting their focus to this year’s model and demonstrating they were enormously confident in being able to maintain the advantage they already held over the field.
Stella noted they were now in position to make the most of the accumulated development of this year’s car, which Brown too feared may make Red Bull once more unstoppable. “We want to continue to close the gap. We finished last year second, third quickest team depending on the circuit,’ he said.
“Our car development has been strong but Red Bull it seems didn’t develop last year to the level they could have, so that could be an unpleasant surprise for all of us.”
